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Brian Hague
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Joined: 14 November 2006
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Posted: 06 October 2019 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
At this point, I think anyone working for DC would have to know that what you write today will be folded into, lessened, inverted, botched, or simply erased by others in a very short amount of time.
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Adam Schulman
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Posted: 06 October 2019 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply
In 20 years, sure. In THREE years? That's just plain obnoxious on the part of the Powers That Are at DC.

And yes, Greg Rucka is very much a pro. He's one of the most "egoless" people to write superhero comics over the last 25 years.
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Brian Hague
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Posted: 06 October 2019 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply
In recent years, DC has published...

- Wonder Woman, the True Amazon, a 2016 gn by Jill Thompson
- The Legend of Wonder Woman, Vol. 1, a 2016 gn by Ranae De Liz
- Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol. 1, a 2016 gn by Grant Morrison
- Wonder Woman: Warbringer, a 2017 novel by Leigh Bardugo
- Wonder Woman, the Lies (Rebirth), 2017's restart by Greg Rucka

All of which purport to tell the origin of the character, all of which contradict one another, and none of which DC has or ever had the slightest intention of standing behind should the wind shift.

Yes, they were written for different markets with different understandings of their placement within the cosmos going in, but none of them sync up with one another in large part because, to DC, everything is instantly fungible. Not in 20 years, but immediately. 

Stories don't mean anything to the current leaders of the company, so why should any one iteration of a meaningless story count for anything? It's all just ink on paper, hopefully with pretty pictures, thrown out to the lemmings and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. They don't know the difference, so how could anyone else? Here's that same story again, one more time! It's good, right? You like it? Of course you do. It's exactly the same as last time, only different. Slightly. Perfect!

Dan Didio says they're just beginning to figure out how continuity works at DC? Yeah. He wishes they were. He does not now nor ever had a clue. DC does not even have working knowledge of what a "premise" is, never mind continuity.
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 5:59am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
Greg Rucka was one of the best and most consistent writers Wonder Woman had had in a number of years.

It does annoy me that a lot of good work gets thrown out of the door by editorial demands.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 6:11am | IP Logged | 5 post reply
It does annoy me that a lot of good work gets thrown out of the door by editorial demands.

••

Too much focus on "events" and manufactured "collectibles". In part, Dark Phoenix is to blame, or at least the memory of that tale. It's held up as a huge commercial success (which it wasn't) and, worse, a PLANNED event (which it also wasn't). But trying to bottle that lightning a second, third, fiftieth time has led to the kind of thinking that dominates--and has ultimately destroyed--the industry.

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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 7:42am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
That's what a lot of people forget. That Dark Phoenix grew out of the characters and the stories. It was a natural progression.

If more creative teams let the characters and the narrative build to logical conclusion there would be less need for trying to bottle lightning.

At present there are few and far between people that can do that. Larry Hama on G.I. Joe being the one that comes to mind.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 7:50am | IP Logged | 7 post reply
That's what a lot of people forget. That Dark Phoenix grew out of the characters and the stories. It was a natural progression.

ªª

If Chris and I had done the story we planned, it would probably be largely forgotten today. Jean/Phoenix would have become a recurring villain for a few years, and then somebody (us, or after us) would have redeemed her, and things would have gone back to business as usual.

Unfortunately, we ended up with something that was a superior story, but that Chris and later writers simply would not let go.

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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 8:31am | IP Logged | 8 post reply
That is the only fault that I can find with Chris Claremont's writing. He has some brilliant original ideas or does so through collaboration, but tends to not be able to restrain his urge to return to the well.
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 8:36am | IP Logged | 9 post reply
I guess the rule has to be something simple like, no matter how "big" the story... let it go!
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John Byrne
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 8:37am | IP Logged | 10 post reply
From time to time I’ve been told my stories end too quickly. I sometimes wonder if it seems so because they do, in fact, end. People who still associate my work with Chris may expect them to go on, and on, and on...............
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply
Louise Simonson said in an interview that when Chris would come to her and say he'd run out of ideas, she would just refer him back to his two years worth of unresolved subplots.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 07 October 2019 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply
What made me crazy is that I would plot something with a clean, clear conclusion, and Chris would force an unresolved plot thread into it.
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